Professor Brandon Garrett on Exposing the Flaws in Forensics

By Brendan Clemente This past March, Duke Law’s Professor Brandon Garrett released his newest book, Autopsy of a Crime Lab: Exposing the Flaws in Forensics. Professor Garrett founded the Wilson Center for Science and Justice and studies the use of forensic evidence in criminal cases. Brendan Clemente, Duke Law & Technology Review’s (DLTR) Managing Editor, sat down with Professor Garrett to discuss the book. Thank you for joining DLTR to discuss your new book, Autopsy of a Crime Lab: Exposing the Flaws in Forensics. What made you want to delve into this topic in this book? My introduction to forensics came after law school. I took evidence in law school, for which I am glad now that I am now teaching it. We did not cover expert evidence. I did not take law and science classes, and I went to law school having turned away from math and science, like most of us lawyers do. When I was in practice, I worked at a civil rights firm where there were two types of cases one could gravitate toward: police brutality cases and wrongful conviction cases. I told the partners I wanted to work on the police brutality cases. The wrongful